"Idealists foolish enough to throw caution to the winds have advanced mankind and have enriched the world." -Emma Goldman

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Surprising twist

In a surprising turn of events, all of my allergy skin testing yesterday was negative. I was negative for all 69 triggers that they tested.
The doctor was baffled and I was [pleasantly] shocked. My clinical picture very
much pointed towards allergies being the culprit for a lot of my generalized
'yuck'. That said, after some pulmonary function tests and a significant improvement post
administration of albuterol, I was given the [equally] surprising diagnosis of "asthma
/ an asthma spectrum breathing issue" and a 1 months sample of asthma
management drugs to see if there is any improvement.

The doctor also discussed emerging research supporting local IgE response in
both the nasal tract and gastric mucosa- which would mean that one is actually
allergic to something but that there is no way to easily test for it as there
will be no response to skin or blood testing. Local IgE?! This challenges
everything I learned in immunology... given immunology was the pre-clinical
class I struggked most with. However, reviewing some scholarly
articles on the subject today proves him right, that this is an emerging belief
in the allergy and immunology world. They have no way to test for these
triggers and so I may never know if this is in fact what is going on with me.
Maybe I actually am allergic to something(s) (which I suspect to include dust
and mold) or maybe I'm just a paranoid hypochondriac?

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About Me

I am a medical student in the South. I am also an observantly Jewish, type 1 diabetic, celiac, queer, strongly pro-choice activist. I am doing what I can to hold onto my ideals as I brave the chaos of medical education.